(Article 3) Organization and community of practice

.............................Human is created in the earth to live a social life. When a human is born, he or she becomes the part of the family. And family is considered as the first school of a person. From then itself social life of the person starts. In a way, we can say that family as an organization. May be many will argue on this point, but I sticks to my point.

..........................Talking about the organization, in the growing time itself he/she becomes the part of different communities. In the school, college and also in the working place there is a common motto, at the same time the person has got their own interest. E.Wenger(March, 2001) defines community of practice as a group of people working towards some interest, by learning from interaction and from experiences. ”Domain”,” community” and ”practice” are the main characteristics of community of practice.

....................Now every organization is implementing communities of practice in all sense. Because its not possible to stand as an organization itself, but as “learning organization”, which concentrates on learning from the competition itself (R Schultheis, M Sumner, 1997). Now the most successful organizations are learning organizations. The basic disciplines of learning organization are personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision, team learning, systems thinking (R Schultheis, M Sumner, 1997). Learning organizations encourages the knowledge and its use within the organization. As part of the strategy, Communities of Practice are practical applications (Brad Hinton, 2003)

...................The key factor in the success of an organization will be knowledge. So in a learning organization it’s very important to share the knowledge within them. And for knowledge sharing the most important solution must be the use of IT. Nowadays no organization can stand in the industry without the help of information technology. So for the sharing of knowledge; networks can be used (A Ardichvili, M Maurer, W Li, T Wentling ,R Stuedemann ,2006). This may be of different type online communities, intranets, social networks etc. All these will support the organization to work better and aim for more. Here the factors noted by E.Wenger(March, 2001); domain, community and practice exist. One of the main advantages of the Cop is their ability to distribute tacit knowledge, of an expert to a large group (A Ardichvili, M Maurer, W Li, T Wentling and R Stuedemann, 2006). That is important as an organization.It shows that community of practice exists in almost every successful organization.

...................To be a part of the network is essential in Community of practice. Communities of Practice exist wherever there is a will to share information and experiences in a community .Within the network they are interacting personally, which results in a community feeling and trust within a group (Brad Hinton, 2003).Communities of Practice can be virtual ,which means that members may not work in specific location. Members do not even have to be part of the one firm and can be established by individuals, like farmers, outside any institutional framework.

.................Talking about the online communities, such as facebook, orkut, hi5 etc are becoming part of the lifestyle itself. Any person, who is capable of operating the computer, should be in any kind of online social community. These kinds of networks bind the people in a virtual world. Here the primary motto is “interest” of the people to socialize. So we can say that it’s a community of interest. The members are not official in nature but in formal way.Sometimes the common goal is missing in that kind of communities and they were only concentrating on the individual goals.

.................In an organization the most important part is team work, for that we are using different techniques. Making special teams, allocation of expertise, continuous flow of information etc are very few of them. Community of practice exists in every successful organization, which leads towards the growth of the organization and also to the development of the person within the organization.



Reference:

• Brad Hinton June 20-21, 2003. Knowledge Management and Communities of Practice: an experience from Rabobank Australia and New Zealand ,IAMA World Food and Agribusiness Symposium

• Alexandre Ardichvili, Martin Maurer, Wei Li, Tim Wentling and Reed Stuedemann,2006,Cultural influences on knowledge sharing through online communities of practice,JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT,vol 10,no 1, pp 94-107.

• Robert Schultheis, Mary Sumner, 1997, Management information systems, Forth edition,New Delhi:Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited.

• Etienne Wenger,March 2001,Supporting community of practice:a survey of community-oriented technologies,Draft,version 1.3
  

• http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.html
  

(Article 2) Existence of knowledge in knowledge management

..............................In the management field, there is high probability of emerging fields. The brand new term evolved as a subsection is "knowledge management”. In taxonomic approach it is new in nature, but every successful organization is using this unknowingly. After emerging as a new field, there is a lot of controversy in the existence of knowledge management in an organization.

..............................At present within the boundaries of definition given by the scholars, Knowledge management is wobbling in between Information Management and Human Resource (Joe gollner, 2006).Some scholars are saying that its a completely different section in the organization, while some others like T.D.Wilson claims that its a "Non-sense”. Research carried out by T.D.Wilson includes reports on journals, corporate view of knowledge and also the studies carried out in different business schools. And he claims that the corporate in the studies are usually deals with information itself.

............................As T.D Wilson said Accenture is a software firm and it depends on IT enables Lotus ware software. Using the Lotus ware, the employees are sharing their information; it obviously becomes the sharing of knowledge itself. Cap Gemini Ernst and Young is another corporate organization in which they are using formal ,informal discussions, newsgroups , yellow pages and intranet within the organization(T.D Wilson, 2002).TD Wilson says It demonstrate that Its different from Information management.

............................The corporate company Deloitte and Touche defines knowledge as an asset(T.D Wilson, 2002) .The assets may be of different type documentation ,database, organizational policies etc .For the company Ernst and Young information sharing is done through networks which is part of the knowledge sharing, utilization and it becomes knowledge management itself. KPMG consulting company also uses some kind articulated knowledge which consists of policies and business process (T.D Wilson, 2002).

..............................For McKinsey and Company T.D.Wilson shows the example of the jobs one for "research analyst" job and the other for "Knowledge specialist" .Even though the job specification of "knowledge specialist" in the company is same as "information officer”. It doesn’t mean that knowledge is synonym to Information.

.............................There are a lot of examples of successful projects in Knowledge management; it’s because of the exact differentiation between knowledge and information. Every project has got their own objectives. The journal published in 1998 by , De long, Beers shows the successful projects in Knowledge management. The objectives of projects are classified as four; creating knowledge repositories, improving knowledge access, enhancing knowledge environment, managing knowledge as an asset (Davenport, De long,Beers,1998).

............................Creating knowledge repositories is important in Knowledge management. Goal is to collect the knowledge in any form- report, document, memos, presentation, articles etc (Davenport, De long, Beers, 1998).The second objectives concentrates on accessibility of the repositories. Yellow pages are a good example of the knowledge accessibility. Cap Gemini Ernst and Young used the yellow pages in their organization to gather the information. And its part of the Knowledge management itself. By creating effective knowledge creation, transfer and use the organization is enhancing the knowledge environment (Davenport, De long, Beers, 1998).Its creating an environment which suits for the fellow workers to understand the process in the organization. The last objective of the successful projects was to consider knowledge as a asset (Davenport, De long, Beers, 1998).The objectives may be of multiple characters. At the same time an organization can work on the knowledge repositories and improve the knowledge management environment to motivate people to contribute and access the repository (Davenport, De long, Beers, 1998).

................................The success factor of the organization mainly deals with the economic performance. The easiest and most impressive benefits from knowledge management projects involves money saved or earned (Davenport, De long, Beers, 1998).As per (Davenport, De long,Beers,1998),its difficult to get the best group for the project., for this purpose facilitators are used.The knowledge structure must be in balance, because the same knowledge differs for different persons. It’s not easy to create and modify the entire structure. Knowledge friendly culture is very difficult to cultivate in an organization, if it’s not present (Davenport, De long, Beers, 1998).People in the organization must have a "positive orientation"-they must be willing to accept the knowledge, at the same time they must be eager to the knowledge (Davenport, De long, Beers, 1998)."Purpose" is a very important factor in effectiveness of projects. The example of Chrysler shows that more than fact based normal business languages knowledge manager deals with complexity and uncertainty which further debates itself (Davenport, De long, Beers, 1998).

............................Successful knowledge managers know that, knowledge is transferred through different paths and that reinforce them (Davenport, De long, Beers, 1998)."Having knowledge oriented, retain g an organizational structure, finding motivation tools and developing senior management support" appear to be the most important key factors in success (Davenport, De long, Beers, 1998).

..........................Knowledge always plays a role in the new age successful projects. Failure also are there in knowledge management projects, But it’s not a complete disaster, the problem with them is to they cannot state their success. I think knowledge is not easy to manage directly; we can manage the way of processing the knowledge.



Reference:

• Joe Gollner (2006),The Anatomy of Knowledge, www.gollner.ca

• Thomas H.Davenport, David W. De Long, Micheal C. Beers (1998),Successful knowledge management projects, Sloan Management Review.

• T.D. Wilson (2002),The nonsense of 'knowledge management', vol 8,no 1.

(Article 1) Comparison through SECI framework: Earl 7 school model and Kakabadse's model

..............Knowledge management is an important part of the success of an organization. The main concern is whether it is useful for the organization to make the profit or advantage. But as Earl said "...knowledge management is not easy to define"(Earl, 2001) .Now a lot of debate is happening around this topic. I'm looking at two models; Earl 7 School and Kakabadse's model of knowledge management through the eye of SECI framework by (Nonaka, 1991).

..............In the Earl 7 school study, Earl claimed that every organization follow any one of the characteristics of the school. The characteristics are "technocratic”,” economic" and "behavioral"(Earl, 2001). The first section technocratic is fully dependent on information technology. System school which is the sub section of technocratic nature are capturing the specialist knowledge and use it in knowledge bases (Earl, 2001), so that other peoples in the organization use that information. This is basically "internalization" (Nonaka, 1991). Here in systems school the mode of internalization is based on IT, being technocratic in nature.

.................In cartographic school also IT plays an important role."It only deals with who knows what" (Earl, 2001).They just concentrating on the "personalized knowledge" rather than the "codified knowledge"(Earl, 2001). Even though ,the less structured engineering school uses the concept of internalization. From the example given by Earl, it is clear that there is "knowledge repositories" which consist of information about the market, competitors, research proposal etc (Earl, 2001). If a person is using these kinds of knowledge repositories repeatedly for the benefit of the company, by practice it becomes the tacit knowledge within that person; this is internalization. It shows that SECI framework suits in engineering model

.................In the 7 school, commercial school only concentrates on "exploitation "of the knowledge rather than the "exploration" of the knowledge (Earl, 2001).Making profit is the one and only motto of the commercial school. . No concept of SECI framework (Nonaka, 1991) is used in this school.

............In organizational school, sharing, storing and exchange of information is happening with the help of IT, its well known as behavioral in nature(Earl,2001). At the same time they were using the "personalized knowledge" and the "codified knowledge"(Earl, 2001). "Socialization" is an important factor in theses type of school, which is enabled by SECI framework (Nonaka, 1991).

..................Spatial school provides Cafeteria and kitchen in the floor of the organization, which means that there is a good chance of socialization (Earl, 2001). But SECI framework (Nonaka, 1991) works well in the spatial school also. Earl claims that strategic school represents knowledge management as a dimension of competitive strategy (Earl, 2001).But there is no SECI model concepts used anywhere in the strategic school. But here Earl says that strategic school works on "competitive advantage”, in a sense it works for the profit. As Earl said if some organization concentrates on the profit, it obviously becomes the economical school. So SECI framework has got no connection with the strategic school.

......................"Chain of knowledge flow is data-information-realization-action-wisdom" by (A. Kakabadse, N.Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003).There are four knowledge management models; philosophical, cognitive, network and Cop based (A Kakabadse,N Kakabadse, A kouzmin, 2003).

................Philosophy based model deals with the "epistemology of knowledge" (A Kakabadse,N Kakabadse, A kouzmin, 2003). In this model technology is in rear seat, but here the leading factor is performers in top level management. SECI framework is not playing any role here in this model. Here the concept is "Socratic" which says that "justified true belief"(A Kakabadse,N Kakabadse,A Kouzmin,2003).

....................Cognitive model considers "knowledge as an asset" and also says that it can be managed (A Kakabadse,N Kakabadse, A kouzmin, 2003). From the instance given by (A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse, A kouzmin, 2003) when a new technology is introduced to an organization, by continuous use it becomes embodied within the organization.Comparing to philosophical model IT is much more prominent here.

....................In network model there is always a "exchange" of information, "flow of resources" within the network (A Kakabadse,N Kakabadse, A kouzmin, 2003).The person who got the license to go beyond the library gets the idea form outside and applies here. The organization gets the new idea because of the "socialization" of that person (Nonaka.1991).Sharing of information is also done within the companies which are located far from others with the aid of IT. SECI framework (Nonaka, 1991) works here as well as in the cognitive model."CP model builds on the sociological and historical perspective" by (A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003,83).The CP culture can be found anywhere in the environment, not just in the organization but also in home, school, college, hospital(A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003).The members of the CP is not officially committed , to work in a strict manner. SECI framework (Nonaka, 1991) works well in CP model also.

........................Quantum model works in the emerging section of quantum technology (A Kakabadse,N Kakabadse, A kouzmin, 2003). In the case of “complex decision making" more than knowledge top level management need wisdom (A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003,84).Quantum computing will help the top level management by giving virtual experience of decision outcomes(A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003). SECI framework doesn’t suits here in quantum computing at anywhere.

.................SECI framework although deals with basic culture of an organization, It doesn’t works with every model simultaneously. In the Earl 7 school model cartographic, commercial and strategic models doesn’t gel with the SECI framework.I haven’t got any connection between the SECI characteristics in three of the models. In the other models philosophy and quantum based model doesn’t have the characteristics of SECI framework. It all says that although there is acceptance of SECI, it’s not the end of the frameworks.

Reference:

• Nada Kakabadse, A Kakabadse and Alexander kouzmin(2003),Reviewing the knowledge management literature: towards a taxonomy, vol 7, no 4.

• Michael Earl,(2001),Knowledge management strategies:Towards taxonomy,vol18,no1

• Nonaka(1991),The Knowledge-Creating Company, Harvard business review.

Comparison through SECI framework: Earl 7 school model and Kakabadse's model

.......................Knowledge management is an important part of the success of an organization.The main concern is whether it is useful for the company to make the profit or advantage. But as Earl said "...knowledge management is not easy to define"(Earl,2001,216) .Now a lot of debate is happening around this topic. I'm looking at two models;Earl 7 school and Kakabadse's model of knowledge management through the eye of SECI framework by(Nonaka,1991) .

.......................In the Earl 7 school study, Earl claimed that every organization follow any one of the characteristics of the school. According to Earl there are three different characteristics. They are "technocratic","economic" and "behavioral"(Earl,2001,217). The first section technocratic is fully dependent on information technology. That means they are using IT to support the process of the organization. Systems which is the sub section of technocratic nature, uses the "capturing of information"(Earl,2001,216). They are capturing the specialist knowledge and use it in knowledge bases(Earl,2001,218), so that other people in the organization use that information. This is basically "internalization" (Nonaka, 1991,99). Because here "tacit knowledge" of a person is tranfered into "explicit knowledge" , using the information within the organization. Here in systems school the mode of internalisation is based on IT , being technocratic in nature.

..........................In cartographic school also IT plays an important role. I hav'nt found any of the SECI model concepts in the cartographic school. "It only deals with who knows what" (Earl,2001,220).They are just concentrating on the "personalized knowledge" rather than the "codified knowledge"(Earl,2001,221). Eventhough the engineering section is less structured it uses the concept of internalisation.From the example given by Earl, it is clear that there is "knowledge repositories" which consist of a lot of information about the market ,competitors,research proposal etc(Earl,2001,222). In a sense internalization is happening here also. If a person is using these kind of knowlede repositories repeatedly for the benefit of the company, by practice it becomes the tacit knowledge within that person; this is internalisation.It shows that SECI framework suits in engineering/process model.

.........................In the 7 school , commercial school only concentrating on "exploitation "of the knowledge rather than the "exploration" of the knowledge(Earl,2001,222).Making profit is the one and only motto of the commercial school. Earl said that there is an advantage for this school, i.e there will be a specialist team which performs aggressivly in the organization.No concept of SECI framework(Nonaka,1991) is used in this school.

.........................In organizational school, there is a knowledge pool or network(Earl,2001).The networks may be within the organization and may be not.Eventhough the sharing and exchange of information is happening with the help of IT, its well known as behavioral in nature(Eearl,2001).With the aid of IT they were storing the new experiences ,reviews and are stored which can be useful for others in the organization. At the same time they were using the "personalized knowledge" and the "codified knowledge",(Earl,2001,225). The success factor for the organizational school; first,communities works well where there is socialability second communities are social networks, same as technical networks(Earl,2001)."Socialisation" is an important factor in theses type of school, which is enabled by SECI framework(Nonaka,1991).


....................Spatial schools provides spaces for the organization.Cafeteria and kitchen in the floor of the organization means that there is a good chance of socialisation(Earl,2001). Certain companies are giving more break time to enhance the peoples to restart their works. But its not sure that whether they are using it in the right direction.But SECI model (Nonaka,1991) works well in the spatial school also. Earl claims that strategic school represents knowledge management as a dimension of competitive strategy(Earl,2001,227).But there is no SECI model concepts used anywhere in the strategic school.If we talk from the top ie from the behavioral model,there is a concept of SECI (Nonaka,1991) is used.But here Earl says that startegic school works on "competitive advantage",in a sense it works for the profit. As Earl said earlier If some organization works for the profit , it obviously becomes the economical school,which is different in nature.So SECI model have got no connection with the strategic school.

......................"Chain of knowledge flow is data-information-realization-action-wisdom" by(A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003,76).Cognitive science,management science,AI, social science,information science,knowledge engineering these are influenced by the Knowledge management(A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2001). Eschenfelder states that knowledge management contains four of the components:process,information technology,knowledge repositories and individual behaviour. There are four knowledge management models ; philosophical,cognitive,network,CoP based (A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003).

.......................Philosophy based model deals with the "epistemology of knowledge".(A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003,80). This model gives strategic overview hence it raises a lot of questions and reflection of what learned through(A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2001). In this model technology is in rear seat, but here the leading factor is top performers,which is in top level management. SECI framework is not playing any role here in this model. Here the concept is "socratic" which says that "justified true belief"(A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003,81).

...................Cognitive model considers "knowledge as an assset" and also says that it can be managed(A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003,82).One of the arguement in the Cognitive model is that its just suitable for "re-utilization",which is not true.From the instance given by (A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003) when a new technology is introduced to an organization, by continuos use it becomes embodied.The people in the organization is getting used to it, and its becoming "tacit knowledge" to them(Nonaka,1991,99). Comparing to philosophical model IT is much more prominent here.

....................In network model there is always a "exchange" of information, "flow of resources" within the network(A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003,83).At the end "socialisation" is happening here also as by(Swan ,Newell,2000).The person who got the licence to go beyond the library gets the idea form outside and applies here. The organization gets the idea because of the "socialisation" of that person(Nonaka.1991,99 ).Sharing of information is also done within the companies which are located far from others with the aid of IT. SECI framework(Nonaka,1991) works here as well as in the cognitive model.


..................."CP model builds on the sociological and historical perspective" by(A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003,83).The CP culture can be found anywhere in the environment, not just in the organization but also in home,school, college,hospital(A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003).The members of the CP is not officially commited , to work in a strict manner.CP is essential for converting some kind of "explicit knowledge" to "tacit knowledge" for the others by internalising within the CP(Swan ,Newell,2000). SECI framework (Nonaka,1991)works well in CP model also.


...................Quantum model works in the emerging section quantum technology(A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003).In the case of " high complexity decision making" more than knowledge top level management need wisdom (A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003,84).Quantum computing will help the top level management by giving virtual experience of decision outcomes(A Kakabadse, N Kakabadse ,A kouzmin,2003.)SECI framework does'nt suits here in quantum computing at anywhere.


....................SECI framework although deals with basic culture of an organization,It does'nt works with every model simultaneosly.In the Earl 7 school model carographic,commercial and strategic models does'nt gel with th SECI framework.I hav'nt got any connection between the SECI characteristics in three of the models. In the other models philosophy and quantum based model does'nt have the characteristics of SECI framework.It all says that although there is acceptance of SECI ,its not the end of the frameworks.





references::

Nada Kakabadse, A Kakabadse and Alexander kouzmin.(2003),Reviewing the knowledge management literature:towards a taxonomy, vol 7, no 4.

Michael Earl.(2001),Knowledge management strategies:towards a taxonomy,vol 18, no 1.

Nonaka, I. (1991), The Knowledge-Creating Company,Harvard business review.